rick santorum finished in second place with 31%. ron paul who in the last two cdpac straw polls finished last with 12% be behind newt gingrich. rick santorum shows considerable signs of strength. this is, i think, probably the topic of discussion inside the romney camp all week. new national poll shows him with a 15 point lead over mitt romney. it is the first time santorum led national poll. one factor in santorum s surge is the support of a man named foster freeze. hi no idea who he was just a few weeks ago but now a fair amount about him. freese is a mutual frund make nature from jackson, wyoming. as of december, freese donated $331,000 to the red, white and blue fund, pro-santorum super pac and subsequent donations in 2012 have not been disposed. friday freese introduced santorum at cpac and he opened with a joke. a bar a couple doors down.
recently a conservative, liberal, and a moderate walked into the bar. the bartender says hi, mitt. when you tell a joke and you don t get laughs, just start laughing yourself and usually people will go with you. one. most interesting and i think unintended consequences of the super pac era is so far people like freese or shelton adelson can pump money into the pac and keep people like romney from walking down the race. playing a major role in the general election. particularly now that president obama s campaign announced that it would no longer be dis couraging donors from contributing to the super pac supporting the president s re-election, priorities usa action. this was big news the beginning of the week because the obama
stuff. that s like foster freese and adelson. you know, these nutty millionaires. i don t think they would call themselves nutty but continue. no. what i mean is hiring gladiators to do their battle. these are individual extremely rich people. and that s troubling. right. but when less troubling than what is going to happen the next cycle, what s already happening at the state level with super pacs, homebuilders getting involved. and where you actually see goldman sachs and bank of america figuring out how to take the money. right. what we are seeing now i think really good point. seeing these individuals as opposed to using this vessel. much more than organized interest. i actually think that just to give provocation here, there is a way in which the the sheldon adelson and freese in this race is making it more possible for gop primary voters